‘I think I killed her’: Man confesses to killing grandmother with hammer and then stealing her car, police say

A Memphis woman was killed with a hammer before having her car stolen, and authorities said her grandson confessed to doing it.

Sonya Dates, 58, was found bleeding by her daughter on Wednesday afternoon next to a bloody hammer, Memphis Police Department officers said, according to the Charlotte Observer. Officers and a paramedic arrived at the scene and found wounds to the back of her head, and she was pronounced dead.

The cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head believed to have been caused by the hammer.

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Through the police investigation, investigators learned from the victim’s daughter that her son, Kerrien Dates, 23, had been living with his grandmother. They also discovered the grandmother’s blue 2020 Chevrolet Camaro was missing from her home.

The vehicle was spotted through cameras capturing license plates about 85 miles northeast in Jackson, Tennessee, that same Wednesday. Kerrien Dates was the person driving the car, the Jackson Police Department announced in a press release.

When officers pulled the defendant over in the vehicle and asked him why he thought he was being stopped, he said, “I hit Sonya in the head with a hammer and I think I killed her,” according to an affidavit reviewed by the outlet.

According to Sonya Dates’ daughter, Kerrien Dates and his grandmother had been fighting. The defendant’s mother allegedly said she told her mother to kick her son out of the house “for safety,” police said.

Sonya Dates is believed to have just arrived home when she was attacked, as she was still wearing a backpack and lunch bag when her body was found.

The Memphis Police Department charged Kerrien Dates with first-degree murder and theft of property. He is being held in the Shelby County Jail and has a court appearance scheduled for Monday.

A next-door neighbor of Sonya Dates’ remembered her as “a good person.”

“It is sad to see she is gone,” Tracey Holloman told WMC in Memphis. “She didn’t bother anybody, she did not deserve it. I am praying for the family.”

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